???? Live: Crimea bridge partially open to traffic, Russian official

Issued on: 18/07/2023 – 06:20

2 min

05:15am: Crimea bridge partially open to traffic, Russian official

Partial road traffic opened on one lane of the Crimean Bridge late on Monday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said on his Telegram channel.

“Motor transport on the Crimean Bridge has been restored in reverse mode on the most outer right lane,” Khusnullin wrote on Monday.

However, ferry operations were suspended early on Tuesday, due to bad weather, Russian agencies reported, citing the Moscow-backed emergency situations ministry of Crimea

03:54am: Russia launches new air attacks, Ukrainian Air Force

Russia launched overnight air attacks on Ukraine’s south and east using drones and possibly ballistic missiles, Ukraine’s Air Force and officials said early on Tuesday.

A fire broke out at one of the “facilities” in the port of Mykolaiv late on Monday, the city mayor said. The port city provides Ukraine with access to the Black Sea.

“It’s quite serious,” Mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said on the Telegram messaging app of the fire, adding that more detail will come in the morning.

The southern port of Odesa and the Mykolaiv, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions were under threat of Russian drone attacks, the Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app.

Key developments from Monday, July 17:

Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain initiative, a key wartime deal that allowed grain to flow from Ukraine to countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where hunger is a growing threat and high food prices have pushed more people into poverty. The decision triggered condemnation from around the world, including by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who said Monday that Russia’s decision to exit the Ukraine grain deal will “strike a blow to people in need everywhere.” Russia said it would consider rejoining the grain export deal if it saw “concrete results,” but that so far its demands had not been met.

Earlier Monday, an attack on a bridge connecting Russia and Crimea left two people dead and damaged parts of the bridge. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Ukraine of carrying out an attack on the bridge connecting Russia and Crimea, with the involvement of Britain and the United States. Zakharova did not provide evidence to support the assertions. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his defence ministry was preparing for a response to the overnight attack.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)